Chapter 855
Instructor Sharpe stepped forward, her voice booming with authority. “Questioning an instructor’s orders? Insubordination! O’Malley, you can join her. Two hours of push-ups!”
Brenna clenched her jaw, walked over to the punishment area, and dropped to the ground beside Caroline without another word.
At that moment, Melanie Thorne saw her chance.
She stepped forward, her expression a careful blend of humility and confidence. “Report, Instructors. With your permission, I’d like to demonstrate the proper grip for the squad, to help prevent any further accidents.”
It was a brilliant political move, or so she thought. She would showcase her expertise, curry favor with Sloane, and literally stand tall while her two biggest rivals groveled in the dirt.
Instructor Sharpe seemed about to agree, but Sloane spoke first.
Her gaze swept over Melanie, and it was filled with an undisguised, venomous contempt.
Sloane remembered yesterday. She remembered this woman sprinting for the finish line, desperate to impress the Colonel.
“And when did it become your place to ‘demonstrate’ anything, Thorne?” Sloane asked, her voice dangerously soft.
The confident smile on Melanie’s face froze and shattered.
“You seem eager to exert yourself,” Sloane continued. “Excellent.”
She pointed to an empty patch of gravel a few yards away. “Two hours of frog jumps. Begin.”
Melanie stood there, mouth open, her expression blank with disbelief. Then her gaze darted to Sloane’s face, searching for an explanation that wasn’t coming.
Sloane’s gaze was flat and absolute. It rested on Melanie with the same cold indifference she would give a piece of equipment that had outlived its usefulness. Her expression hardened as she recognized the familiar ambition in the younger woman’s eyes, the same hunger she had seen in so many others who had tried to catch Jarrod’s attention. Caroline was the primary target, but Melanie had just painted a target on her own back.
Not daring to argue, Melanie walked in a daze to her designated punishment zone.
The scene on the firing range was now one of surreal, black comedy. Three women, in three separate areas, were being punished for three entirely different reasons.
Caroline and Brenna performed their push-ups in synchronized, silent solidarity.
A short distance away, Melanie began her first, agonizing frog jump.
Brenna, panting with effort, managed to gasp out a taunt between push-ups. “Hey, Thorne! Looking for attention? Jump a little higher! Maybe the Colonel will see you from his office!”
Melanie’s face flushed a deep, mottled red with fury, but she could only channel her rage into each punishing leap.
Caroline watched it all, a tiny, almost invisible smile touching her lips.
Sloane’s all-consuming jealousy had become an unexpected and very useful weapon. It had dragged another one of her enemies into the mud with her.
The minutes stretched into an eternity of controlled agony. Brenna was the first to falter. Her arms trembled, her push-ups becoming shallow and ragged. Melanie’s frog jumps grew clumsy, each landing a jarring impact that sent waves of pain through her burning thighs.